Prepare to Install DK for Linux

Hardware Requirements

Primary and Secondary Servers

• Systems must meet the minimum requirements for the Linux distribution to be used during the evaluation.
• 512MB RAM minimum; 1GB RAM recommended.
• 2GB of available hard disk space recommended.
• Multiple Network Interface Cards (NIC’s) are recommended.
• Configure one or more additional disk partitions to be used for data replication. On the primary server, these will become the source partitions. On the secondary server(s), these will become the target partitions. In this evaluation example we will be replicating MySQL data (which will be a partition mounted at /var/lib/mysql)
• For replicated partitions, a target partition’s size must equal to or larger than the size of its source partition.
• The system ( / ) and boot (/boot) partitions are not eligible for replication.

Software Requirements

Primary Server and Secondary Server

• Linux Distribution x86_64, AMD 64:
  
  
  • RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.x, 7.x, or 8.x
    
    
  • CentOS Linux 6.x, 7.x, or 8.x
    
    
  • Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.x, 7.x, or 8.x
    
    
  • SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, 12, or 15
    
    
  • See Linux Release Notes for a full list of supported Operating Systems
  
  
• Current patches / security updates are recommended.
• Satisfied dependencies; especially if the Linux installation package selection was base/minimal you will need to refer to the dependencies documentation at Linux Dependencies
• Disable or modify the firewall. LifeKeeper requires multiple ports to be open for normal operation. The firewall should either be disabled following the instructions in Disable the Firewall, or if the firewall can not be disabled follow the instructions in Running LifeKeeper with a Firewall.
• Disable SELinux: Please refer to Disable SELinux for the steps to disable it.
• Check the configuration of your /etc/hosts file
  
  
  • localhost.localdomain and localhost are the only entries that can be on
    127.0.0.1
    
    
  • Create a separate entry for your hostname with a static address
  
  
• GUI Authentication with PAM
  
  
  • LifeKeeper for Linux now leverages the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) provided in the Linux Standard Base (LSB).
  
  
  
  • Users are identified and authenticated against the system’s PAM configuration. Privilege levels are determined from group membership as provided through PAM.
    
    
  • In order to access the GUI, a user must be a member in one of the three LifeKeeper groups: lkadmin, lkoper or lkguest.
    
    
  • See Configuring GUI Users for more information.
    
    

Network Requirements

For your evaluation, we recommend configuring your machines similarly to the following example.

LinuxPrimary and LinuxSecondary are multi-homed, between two LAN segments (the second NIC in each server could even be connected via a cross-over cable if a second physical network is not available). The second NIC is optional in this configuration, but highly recommended in production environments to avoid a single point of failure.

In this example evaluation scenario we will be replicating direct attached storage

IMPORTANT: Rate of Change Analysis

When replicating data in real time, its critical to ensure that you have sufficient bandwidth to keep the replication in a mirroring state at all times. To perform a Rate of Change analysis on your server, which will collect and analyze Write activity over time vs. bandwidth, refer to Measuring Rate of Change on a Linux System.

Primary Server and Secondary Servers

• Configure the Host file with entries for all LifeKeeper protected servers. This is typically /etc/hosts.

Example:

192.168.197.101 LinuxPrimary

192.168.197.102 LinuxSecondary

• See your Network Administrator to obtain an unused IP Address to be used as the switchable IP Address. This switchable IP Address will be created later in the configuration process.

• Public Network connection(s) configured with:

º Static IP address

º Correct subnet mask

º Correct gateway address

• Private Network connection(s) configured with:

º Static IP address (on a different subnet from the public network)

º Correct network mask

º No gateway IP address

º No DNS server addresses